


Hazardous Matt-erials and Personal

by Bumpkin



Series: Matt [5]
Category: Batman Beyond
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumpkin/pseuds/Bumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt is moving further into most aspects of his brother’s worlds, but unfortunately for Matt the worlds are getting mixed together as well as haunted by the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hazardous Matt-erials and Personal

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Thanks to everyone who has commented on the series to date. I really appreciate the FDK, enough that it encouraged me to write this fifth installment for the set. And amazingly enough, this one is with an actual plot included to drive the story forward . Again, remember that feedback is what feeds the muse of your fanfic authors, so comment often and fulsomely. ;-) Really big thanks to Beth, my beta for being a really great cheerleader and keeping me going even when I was struggling with the idea of actually having a plot ;-)

Description: Matt is moving further into most aspects of his brother’s worlds, but unfortunately for Matt the worlds are getting mixed together as well as haunted by the past.

 

Hazardous Matt-erials and Personal  
by Marns AKA Bumpkin  
Rated: PG  
(Wordcount: 21, 660)

 

     In the searing, stygian dark depths of the earth a figure stirred. He had been trapped in the very center of the planet earth’s gravity well for eight long years.  A time frame which seemed like ages when endured in such conditions. It did give him lots of time to think though; there wasn’t much else he could do. No matter how hard he tried he could not move from the place where he was. 

   Ian Peek used to be a reporter, a very famous reporter, after he had taken and used an experimental technology called vibrospace from a scientist named Nabuo Taka, head of research and development at Wayne/Powers. At least he had been until Ian had killed him and stole all his notes and prototypes for his vibrospace project.

   Vibrospace was a revolutionary idea. It was a method for that allowed one solid object to go through another. Ian had seen the opportunities immediately as a reporter. It was power. The technology would jumpstart his career into high gear. He had to have it and so he took it. Problem was that he should have thought about the side effects of using it, and there were some whammy side effects.

   Turns out, his constant use of vibrospace caused his very cells to attune to its frequency and he started to lose his substance even when he wasn’t wearing the belt. On the very eve of his greatest expose – the unveiling of Batman’s secret identity – he had lost control. The power he had so desperately needed to have was fighting back, and it was winning.

   He had called Wayne to ask him for his help after pulling the show minutes before it aired – exposing the Batmen wouldn’t have gotten him very far when asking one of them for help – and offered him the only uncut footage from the cave as incentive. Wayne had only smirked mockingly at him and told him “You’re losing your head,” before turning and walking away. The same anger that had prompted him to attack the older man then, curdled now inside all that used to be Ian Peek. Exercising his rage he struck out, trying to escape the bonds of gravity that held him fast and was astounded to find that he had moved. 

   Something was different; he could feel that in some way he had changed again. Gone from his nebulous state into a malleable solid form. He had no idea how it had happened and frankly, he didn’t care. All that mattered to him was the possibility he was going to finally be able to leave the Earth’s core where he had been trapped for so long. 

  Moving steadily, he passed first through the two layers of the core itself into the mantle. He didn’t pause to celebrate; he still had a long way to go. He was still able to move fairly quickly though the liquid rock of the mantle but he had to slow when he came to the actual crust. He found that he was still able to pass though certain elements, like iron and silica, but others stopped him dead as if he had run into a brick wall. 

   He made several attempts to get through the last barrier holding him back from freedom, threading upwards through compatible minerals in different areas, and each and every time he found he had to retrace his ‘steps’. Frustration ate away at him. It was maddening, he was so close to being free of the prison that he had been stuck in for eight long years, but it almost seemed that it wasn’t meant to be. Following the underside of the crust, he felt along looking for some way to get out. There had to be one, he just couldn’t get this far and be stuck again. 

   Then he found it, a crack. Yes! Tracing the break in the earth’s outer layer to its widest point he began again to move upwards toward liberty. It was a tight squeeze at times, but he made it through and broke out into the open air of a dark night. He climbed out of the hole he had made in the ground and stood in what looked to be a park, relishing the feel of his feet being supported on the solid ground underneath him. It had been so long since he felt so – normal. 

   Glancing around, he tried to determine where he had finally been able to surface. It looked like he had he had come up in Gotham Park, in the old section near the reservoir that was still called Robinson Park. Interesting. Somehow, while he had been blindly swimming up though all that molten earth, he had managed to horn in on his old stomping grounds. ‘Well they do always say that the criminal comes back to the scene of the crime, don’t they?’ Now why would he have thought of that old adage, he wondered – he wasn’t a criminal, he was the victim. 

   Shaking his head to rid himself of such gloomy thoughts, Peek raised his face trying to catch a bit of a breeze. He couldn’t feel anything, but he knew that he had seen the flower-tops nodding so he knew the wind was there. He was solid again so why couldn’t he feel the wind? It didn’t make any sense – unless, the change he had undergone allowing him to resurface had been more drastic than he had originally thought. He lifted his hands up trying to see in the dark how they might have changed, but he couldn’t see anything. Hmm, he looked around – yes, over there – the reservoir was well lit with floodlights and he could use the water as a reflective surface to see himself. 

   He started to walk towards the reservoir, but found his way was slower than he thought it should be. He kept sinking into the earth like he used to when he tried to walk in freshly fallen snow when he didn’t use snowshoes. ‘Blasted park people, why do they water the grass so much when it makes the earth so bloody soft?’ he thought with some irritation. It seemed to take twice as long as it should have, but he finally made it to the well-lit area around the water’s edge. 

   He lifted his hands for the second time that night and gasped in shock at what he saw – his hands were green! Green and see-thru like some kind of gleaming sculpture made from glass. Not smooth and polished either, but more crystalline in nature and there were very obvious striations where his fingers jointed, as well as at his wrists. He glanced into the water to see his reflection. Even with the lack of colours afforded by such a poor viewing surface he could see that his face and body were the same as his hands, colour, texture and everything. He wasn’t human anymore, how was he going to survive now? 

     He wandered away from the water, not wanting to even catch a glimpse of his altered state, and walked slowly towards the city proper. What was he going to do? He couldn’t go back to reporting – he _was_ the story. At the edge of the park his attention was drawn to the glowing public vidscreen. 

      … _And stunning the financial world again is Wayne Enterprises. Headed up by the company’s billionaire CEO, Bruce Wayne, stock prices for the company soared as they announced another spectacular breakthrough in …_

‘Bruce Wayne’, he knew that name… Ah yes, did he know that name – he just hadn’t expected to hear it with ‘CEO’ attached to it or when it wasn’t in conjunction with Powers. He’d almost forgotten during the excitement and following despair of his travels back to the surface and in the resulting discoveries. Wayne/Powers was where he had gotten the vibrospace belt from, and Bruce Wayne was the man he had asked for help only to be laughed at for his troubles. All that money, all those resources he had access to due to his vast company and he had ridiculed one man’s simple request for aid. 

     Seems like the old man had finally been able to unload the Powers millstone from around his company’s neck and was now raking in the creds, hand over fist it sounded like if the news was anything to go by. It wasn’t fair, a man like that shouldn’t get that kind of success in life. Because of that cranky old man he had spent eight long years helplessly trapped in total darkness at the earth’s core… 

     Well, maybe Wayne’s karma was due for a change. Instead of being lucky he was going to become very _un_ -lucky, Ian Peek would make sure of it. Ian would make sure that old man rued the day he had laughed at an unfortunate reporter who was asking for help – because the reporter was back and ready to destroy him. 

            ~*~ 

     It was the end of another day at Hamilton Hill High and Matt McGinnis, ankles and arms crossed, was leaning nonchalantly up against his locker. He was waiting for his girlfriend, Beth Garden, to appear so that he could walk her home before heading to his after school job. It was something that his brother Terry insisted on for some strange reason. 

     The relaxed pose Matt had adopted against his locker was very reminiscent of the way Terry had often stood in the same school. With the uncanny resemblance between the brothers, it actually made some of the older teachers do double-takes as they thought they were seeing a ghost from the past. Until they realized it was Matt, rather than Terry, they were seeing in the familiar pose.  

     The tranquil air Matt gave off as he waited for his girlfriend to appear was a carefully constructed sham. He was in fact hyper-aware of everything that was going on around him. His eyes flickered over everything in sight, noticing any and every nuance. His ears were carefully attuned to all the sounds around him as well, so he heard Beth’s footsteps approaching his location before he saw her. 

     He heard when some of their friends joined her as she neared his post and when they began to talk about a subject that only six months ago Matt would have joined in on whole-heartedly. Batman and his latest exploits. 

     “Hey, you guys hear about the big dust-up at the docks last night?” 

     “Yeah,” Beth said scornfully. Like she would have failed to spot anything ‘Bat’ related. “You of course mean the one that was all over the vids last night that only a moron could have missed. Batman busted open some kind of smuggling ring and laid the smackdown on a bunch of loser Jokerz they had acting as toughs.” 

    “Smackdown is right! Too bad the news got there so late, they only caught the tail end of what looked like some pretty major butt-kicking on Batman’s part.” 

    “The news did get all the arrests that were made by the cops too, we at least got to see all the crooks that Batman beat hauled away.” 

     “Big deal, watching a bunch of cops slap cuffs on the dregs while droning at them about their rights before tossing them into waiting paddy wagons. Drags-ville-city. The brief bit of the fight the news types were able to catch before the cops came, very schway. And to watch the Bat in action, even if it was for such a short time – sweet! That’s all I can say.” 

     Matt wanted to groan out loud – very loud – and roll his eyes. There were times that he couldn’t believe that he’d been just as much of a vulture over ‘Bat’ sightings as the rest of his friends still were. Circumstances had changed his outlook on life lately though. After all, even something fantastic can become humdrum when you are exposed to it pretty much constantly for months. What was that saying? ‘Familiarity breeds contempt,’ or maybe it should be in his case, ‘overexposure makes you numb.’ 

     After his momentous discovery, almost a year ago now, about his brother Terry being the guy under the mask, Matt had entered a different world. Not happy with another person being in on the secret at first, Bruce still had, nonetheless, been very impressed with the logical way Matt had managed to piece together his suspicions about his brother’s second job. Due to those actions, Matt had been offered two opportunities as a result from Bruce and Terry. Both of which he had jumped at. 

    One was the diluted version of a ‘Robin’s’ training with the honing of his observation and detective skills. Matt found the training a lot of fun if demanding. It was also something that he was finding really coming in handy for his schoolwork’s sake. Since he had been able to keep his grade average up, and in some small ways improve, even with all the extra stuff he was doing nowadays. After the high levels of excellence that Bruce demanded, the public school system was a cakewalk. 

     The ‘Robin’ course also covered something that both Terry and Bruce had insisted on even if he wasn’t going to take the intellectual side of the training, fighting skills – it was mandatory that he had to learn how to properly defend himself. Especially if he was going to take them up on the second option, their job offer to work for them both as a personal assistant and dogsbody. They had both said that with the amount of secure information he was going to be privy to during the execution of his duties, it was all too likely that he would be considered as easy pickings for those that wanted to try and get that knowledge, any way they could. Hence the compulsory training in how to fight, supervised by Bruce and taught by Terry. He really hated those sessions, between the two of them he always ended up more black-and-blue than the proper pink he was born with. 

     His friends had finally gotten close enough for them to see him – he had spotted them a while ago – and rushed up to him in a bunch. Aaron, the smallest and most hyper of them all reached him first and said excitedly, “Matt, jeez man – where ya been buddy? It’s been forever since you’ve just hung around with us.” 

     Matt grimaced. Did no-one remember that he had a job now? “I’ve joined the ranks of the working stiffs, Aaron, remember? If I want to get paid I kinda have to show up and do the work they give me. It sucks, but that’s the way it works.” 

     “But man, you work for your _brother_ , not some stranger. I bet he wouldn’t ride you too hard if you were late occasionally.” Aaron protested sounding very, very young. 

     Matt gave his immature friend a disgusted look. “You forget, I also work for Bruce Wayne doofus – even if Terry were to cut me some slack, _he_ wouldn’t.” 

     Aaron just quietly said, “Oh.” 

     One of the other kids, Vivian, jumped in at that point, trying to diffuse an uncomfortable situation using the time honored practice of changing the subject. “So Matt, you hear about the thing with Batman down at the docks last night?” 

      Beth buried her face in her boyfriend’s chest, groaning, when Aaron spoke up again. Nothing could keep that kid down for long. “Yeah, it was _soo_ cool! The news cameras showed up in time to let us see how Bats kicked some major Jokerz heinie. They were the hired muscle for the smugglers, y’know, which if you ask me was a really dumb idea considering how often Batman totally trounces them.” 

     Vivian jumped in to agree, her eyes sparkling. “I know, those Jokerz are so lame. They should have hired someone like Shriek or Spellbinder if they really wanted to keep their warehouse safe. ‘Cept of course that Bats still would have found them and …” 

     Aaron and Vivian continued to animatedly debate the pros and cons of who would have been the best guards for the smugglers, and how fast Batman would have found, and then defeated each one they mentioned. Matt was, almost literally, biting his tongue listening to them. They had it all wrong and he couldn’t tell them – not without letting on to them that he had a better source for information than the rumors and news that they relied on. For the past and present, as well as for the foreseeable future. 

     He was definitely beginning to understand some of his brother’s stranger habits better these days. Yelling at a vidscreen that was making bad reports could certainly be very cathartic for a person under particular types of strain. It _was_ definitely a much better option than blabbing to a bunch of teenage friends that he had a direct line into Batman’s world because his boring businessman brother was, in fact, the hero. ‘Like they would believe me even if I did tell them,’ Matt thought sardonically with an inward grin. Beth got his attention then, before he was further tempted, with a quick pinch on the butt. 

     “Ow – Hey! That’s my butt missy, thank you very much.” Matt grinned at her, taking any possibility of her feeling a sting at his words. 

     Coyly, Beth smiled back as she looped her arm through the crook of his. “Okay, it’s your butt. I solemnly promise never to touch it again.” She laughed at his panicked look – she knew that hadn’t been what he’d meant. “C’mon you working stiff, time to walk me home and leave these losers to their idiotic theoretical debate in peace.” She stuck her tongue out sassily at the two when they broke off in mid-word and turn their affronted faces her way. “What?” 

     Matt chuckled and steered his girlfriend away from the rest of the group before they got some bright idea, like to gang up on her. He really didn’t feel like dealing with a grumpy Beth, not when he much preferred this impish version. Strolling rather than walking the remainder of the way to Beth’s house, Matt felt very good as they continued their innuendo-sprinkled banter. She bid him farewell at her door with a kiss that curled his toes and made the trip to Wayne Enterprises pass in a fog. 

          ~*~ 

     Peek looked around the old unused steel mill on Gotham’s waterfront, assessing it for use as his base while he attacked Wayne and his company. It would do very nicely if it were – in any way – still functional at all. 

     The large building he had decided to appropriate for his use had been abandoned for over twenty years. Cobwebs shrouded the interior and rust liberally dotted every visible surface that he could see through them. When the main blast furnace had lost integrity, the company that owned the mill had not bothered with fixing it, instead they had upgraded to a new location. Leaving the historical and cavernous building to rot. 

     It hadn’t been left long enough to fall to total wrack and ruin. The place still had a solid roof and walls, which more than served for his needs. It even had a couple of intact offices left which were imminently suited to locking up anyone who just might get too nosey for their own good. Hopefully they would stay empty, he really didn’t need that kind of hassle to cope with when he was occupied with making Wayne suffer for his arrogance. 

     ‘Yes,’ he decided, ‘with the small smelter going for me to use as my bed, I’ll be very comfortable here.’ The fired smelter for a bed because he had discovered in his time above that he preferred to be warm while he rested and after the earth’s core, a blanket just wasn’t going to cut it. 

     Surveying the mill one last time, Peek nodded in satisfaction. ‘Yes, this will suit me admirably.’ There were just a few small finishing touches he needed still… and then it would be truly perfect. He headed down to the beach to collect some sand and a few other things that he felt he might need. 

          ~*~ 

     Feeling euphoric and with the awestruck expression still plastered on his face from Beth’s parting kiss, Matt walked into Terry’s office at Wayne Enterprises. His brother took one look at his face and started to laugh, bringing Matt crashing back down into reality. Matt gave Terry a dirty look. 

     “Hey, don’t bother giving me that look pal. You used to harass Dana and me unmercifully! Payback’s a bitch isn’t it?” 

     Wrinkling his nose, Matt had no choice but to accede. He _had_ been a major pest when Terry and Dana were in High School, but that was in the past. He was here now, in the present, to work. “Anyway… you got anything for me?” 

     Terry shook his head, still chuckling away at his younger brother’s expense. “Nah, not really. Just take these papers to Bruce when you head that way. Tell him I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes okay?” 

     “Okay.” Matt took the folder his brother was holding out and walked out into the hallway. As he walked along the executive hallway to the CEO’s office he was greeted by everyone he passed. ‘They treat me like a freaking mascot,’ he thought with disgust as he got yet another hair ruffling from some toady of a manager. ‘Hello people, you don’t ruffle a fifteen-year-old’s hair. Idiots.’ It was with a heartfelt sigh of relief that he slipped into Bruce’s office. 

     “Thank god for doors that close.” He muttered under his breath as he shut the door. He spun around startled when a deep raspy chuckle sounded from the dark corner of the office. “Dammit Bruce! You scared the crap outta me, I didn’t see you sitting there.” 

      “I think that was the idea I was going for,” the old man rumbled with amusement. “Well, the not being seen part at any rate. I think I can do without anything to do with ‘crap’ thank you very much.” Matt didn’t bother to say anything in return – he just rolled his eyes and made a face that spoke volumes by itself. 

     Matt had been fairly quick to lose his awe of Bruce Wayne when he had gotten to know the man behind all the masks, and it showed. Unlike many grown men, Matt didn’t shake in his boots at a harsh word or a glare from the old man. He still had a great deal of respect for Bruce and freely showed it, as well as a certain degree of affection. He knew that his sentiments were the same as his brother’s, if not as strong. Terry and the old man had a real bond that had developed over time after all – years rather than bare months. 

      Bruce’s query of, “Is that for me?” accompanied by a pointed gesture at the papers he still held brought Matt back to himself. Blushing, he walked over and placed the folder into the gnarled hand that extended from the depths of the shadows. He couldn’t believe how much woolgathering he was doing today. 

      “Yeah, and Terry said to tell you that he would be here in about fifteen – oh sorry, make that ten minutes now.” 

      Matt could hear the rustle as Bruce flipped through the papers in the dim lighting and then the decisive slap of the folder being shut. “All done?” Matt quipped with a grin as he saw the folder fly across the room to land perfectly on Bruce’s desk. 

      “Yes, it was just a recap of something Terry and I had been discussing – nothing of interest to you.” Matt made a face. He wasn’t stupid – they could talk about business stuff around him and he wouldn’t freak out. Who knows, maybe he might even add something to the discussion, did they ever think of that? 

      Bruce was amused, but managed to not show it to avoid wounding the young man’s ego. Matt reminded him so much of his second ‘Robin’ and ward Tim Drake, at times that it was uncanny. He had hated when people had underestimated him too. Bruce decided that the fine art of distraction was called for, “So Matt, looking forward to your training session tonight?” 

      “That all depends on the teacher,” Matt replied. “If it’s the one where you actually teach, and only you, then by all means, yes. If it’s the one that Terry gets to beat me to a pulp while you direct him in the pretext of teaching me how to fight, then hell no.” 

      Bruce couldn’t help himself, he laughed. ‘God, he’s a sarcastic little bugger.’  “Well, seeing as it’s your mother’s night to work late, you are being ‘treated’ to both.” 

      Matt groaned theatrically and collapsed into one of Bruce’s office chairs, complaining, “Oh man! That sucks. It means that I’m going to be hurting one hundred percent instead of just fifty tomorrow. You’re going to turn my brains to slush and Terry doesn’t leave enough of me for any potential kidnappers to get by the time he’s done.” 

      “Matt, you do know that you’re a total drama queen don’t you?” Terry had walked in on the tail end of his brother’s gripe. Terry had to quickly duck the pillow that Matt winged at his head as he laughed along with Bruce. “Y’know, they are just _called_ throw pillows. It’s not really a suggestion on how to use them Matt.” 

      “It’s not?” Matt gave his best wide-eyed ingénue look, vacant stare and all. Terry couldn’t take it; he picked up the pillow that Matt had thrown at him and whapped Matt in the face with it. “Ack!” Matt said around a mouthful of velour, hamming it up. 

      “Scram back to my office kiddo, we’ll buzz you if we need you.” Terry said smiling as Matt peeked over the cushion’s top suspiciously. “There’s a new vid game on the computer that I want you to take a stab at, okay?” 

      “New vid game? Alright! Catch you two later.” Matt said as he bounded out the door. ‘Now this is a _job_!’ he thought with glee as he raced back to his brother’s office. 

          ~*~ 

      It had taken him a bit, and the theft of some concealing clothing, but Ian had figured out exactly what had happened to him. For the full week after he had resurfaced he’d spent a great deal of time on the Internet. Doing research on both Wayne and his company as well as trying to identify what he’d changed into. After getting a few leads from the net on just what he might be – fiddling around with a meteorology sorting set to isolate _exactly_ what it was that he’d become. Somehow he’d become a living, walking and talking gemstone. It seemed that his entire body was now made up of something called fayalite, a very rare gemstone that almost never occurred naturally. Fayalite was a combination of mainly iron and silica as well as small amounts of a few other elements mixed in for good measure. 

     Something else that he’d discovered during all that time he used for researching was that food was not something needed anymore for his continued survival by his new body. He also no longer had to breath. It seemed he, by some unknown means, was able to absorb oxygen directly from his immediate surroundings. Even water, but he didn’t care for doing that too much – the innate coolness of water didn’t seem to agree with him anymore, it slowed him down a lot. 

     Then there was the inconvenient factor of how his weight had quadrupled due to his change in specific gravity. He now weighed in at approximately 650 pounds, which is why he’d had such a hard time walking across the park that first night. His initial comparison had been more right than he knew. While walking on the relatively soft grass covered ground at the park, his feet had sunk deeply into the soil. It was just like he had been trying to walk on top of fluffy freshly fallen snow without snowshoes. It was time for someone else to sink now though, and not into something as harmless as snow. 

     Peek glared at the building he stood in front of, Wayne Enterprises Warehouse 12, while the late afternoon sun glared off his translucent green fayalite form in return, blinding anyone who looked directly at him. Good. He didn’t want anyone to look at him nowadays anyway – not when he looked like a freak. 

     This warehouse was going to be his first step in paying back old man Wayne for his disrespect. It had been ten days now since he had managed to win free of the earth, he had been meaning to wait for a full fourteen but found he couldn’t wait any longer. Yes, after being trapped for so long, he’d lost any kind of patience that he might have had in the past. Now he wanted instant gratification – the quicker the better. 

      Roaring out his anger he suddenly rushed the warehouse, demolishing a good number of things on his way in with his crystalline body alone. The onlookers on the street and the workers in the warehouse heard a surprisingly appealing bell-like tone that resonated from his limbs and torso every time that he connected with something solid, which was pretty much right from the start since he didn’t bother entering via the door. 

He had just crashed through the wall like some kind of juggernaut on a mission. Laying waste to anything inanimate that was in his path by the simple expedient of his prodigious use of sheer brute strength, not stopping for anything. Yelling the entire time he was rampaging through the warehouse that Bruce Wayne needed to pay for his sins. That he didn’t deserve the prosperity his family’s company gave him on a silver platter. 

      The people he let go, he wasn’t interested in them – he only wanted to hurt Wayne and his company. If Peek had to destroy it one piece of real estate at a time until he made it all the way up to Bruce Wayne himself, then that’s how he would do it. For a solid hour he ravaged the warehouse’s interior, ranting away the entire time. Then, finally satisfied with the amount of damage he had caused, he left the building and disappeared into the labyrinth of industrial buildings surrounding the warehouse.  

            ~*~ 

      Terry was just on his way to collect Matt from his personal office at Wayne Enterprises and head towards the manor at the end of the day when he was waylaid. An upper level manager grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him towards the elevators. “Mr. McGinnis, sir, you have to come down to the security office right away – there’s something that you need to see.” 

      Terry frowned and shook his arm free. He waited for a moment for the man to elucidate, but apparently it wasn’t going to happen.  Impatient with the older man’s histrionics, Terry internalized a growl as he asked, “Well, what is it? Can you give me some information to work with here? Or am I going to have to try and guess?” 

      The middle-aged manager quailed under his young vice-president’s glare. “Its warehouse number twelve – there’s an intruder. Other than that, I-I’ve never seen anything like this before, sir, so I can’t tell you anything. I’m sorry.” He answered helplessly. 

      Terry strode into the indicated monitor room ahead of the trembling manager and stopped dead at what he saw on the screens. It looked like the form of a man, walked and otherwise moved like a man, and Terry couldn’t be sure without sound, but appeared to talk like a man too. That was where the similarities ended though; the figure on the screen may have been man shaped but there was no way that it could be mistaken for a human. For one thing, it appeared to be made out of a translucent dark green glass. Another was the way it was put together – it wasn’t smoothly carved like a statue, but roughly outlined with very clear striations suggesting any details that might have been needed like facial features. 

      “What in the hell…?” Terry could feel his mouth hanging open. He got over his shock quickly though and asked, “Why don’t we have any sound?” His eyes drifted down to the timestamp in the corner of the screen and he saw that the feed was several hours old. “And _why_ wasn’t I notified when it was happening? These recordings are at least two hours old.” 

      A hard looking man in his early forties answered Terry’s questions in a clipped and precise manner. “Respectfully sir, we didn’t know that this had happened. That _thing_ there took out the audio transmitter for the warehouse in its initial assault. It also destroyed all the cameras, but we were able to recover this much. And that was only after we finally got through to our people on site to tell them to bring the wrecked equipment here.” 

     The head of security at Wayne Enterprises was a former military man, a Captain, and it showed in his bearing and conduct. He ran a tight ship and didn’t suffer fools gladly, as many who worked with him could attest. He also wasn’t the kind of man who gave his loyalty easily, but both Terry and Bruce had managed to impress him over the time he had worked with them, and so had earned his allegiance. He addressed and treated Terry the same way he would a senior officer. 

     The small amount of recovered footage looped back and started to replay as Terry gazed at the screens. His eyes narrowed in anger as he watched the wanton destruction the glass man wreaked on the contents of the warehouse. ‘At least it didn’t go after the people at all.’ It was a small blessing at least. Terry pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. The recordings were hours old and not complete, so there was nothing he could do at the moment other than make sure he had all the information. 

     “I want a copy of all that you recover, Captain – just put the disc on my desk along with the damages report and the personal interviews. I’ll go over them both tomorrow morning first thing.” 

     “Yes Major, I’ll make sure that it’s done. Should I make copies of everything for the Colonel too, sir?” 

     Terry shook his head with a small dark smile, “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll get all pertinent information to Mr. Wayne.” Terry turned to leave the room. Pausing at the threshold he tossed over his shoulder wickedly, “After all, he’s used to me and that way nobody else has to risk braving the beastly dragon in his lair.” Terry heard some small thankful chuckles around the room as he made his escape. 

     It was a running joke in the company that you didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news to Mr. Wayne. His bark was bad enough nowadays that you didn’t _want_ to know what his bite might be like. Since he had to be so ruthless when he was reclaiming his company back, Bruce had thought that trying to return to his former act of ditzy playboy would have been incongruous to say the least. So he now acted like a grumpy old man – bitter with the loss of his youth’s popularity, but replacing it with hard earned power. Corny, trite and overdone story? Yes, but did it work? You betcha! 

          ~*~ 

     Thirty minutes later Terry pulled the limo into the garage of Wayne Manor and parked. He’d filled Bruce in on what had happened to make him late on the way. 

     As the three trooped into the house proper, Terry turned and said,  “Hey Bruce, seeing as we were unavoidably detained by that mess at warehouse twelve we’re running late. Why don’t you and Matt go down to the cave directly and get started while I rustle up something for us all to eat?” 

     Bruce just grunted his assent and turned towards the study, motioning brusquely for Matt to follow. Matt rolled his eyes at the old man’s peremptory manner but fell into step, slightly to the side and behind, obediently enough. He did however mutter depreciatingly under his breath, “Yessir, Mr. Wayne. Right away sir – and may I compliment you on your _absolutely_ stunning social graces?” 

     Matt guessed with chagrin that he might not have been muttering as quietly as he had hoped when he suddenly had to catch himself from a nasty fall. Bruce had unexpectedly tripped him with the cane he always carried. Thankfully, Matt was far enough in his training that it wasn’t too hard for him to right himself, but he was going to have some very interesting bruises on his shins for his troubles. ‘Well, what’s a couple more added to the slew I’m going to get later on?’ 

     But still, as a matter of form, Matt glared at Bruce and demanded, “What was that for?” 

     Bruce smirked evilly at him but just said mildly, “I thought it was time for a test of your reflexes.” 

     “And?” Matt demanded as he stopped in front of the old grandfather clock that hid the main entrance to the cave below the Manor. 

     “You passed.” Bruce said simply and left it at that as he reached past Matt to work the secret mechanism that allowed the clock to swing aside. Matt wanted to scream with frustration. ‘God! Could the old man be more arrogant?’ He contented himself with speaking looks and dire imaginings as he followed Bruce down the rock stairs. He knew better than to tempt fate by opening his mouth and letting it get away from him a second time. 

      Bruce had already put Matt through all his standard exercises – memorizing a page or two at a glance and reading them later in recall, along with other varied memory-training techniques. He’d also tested Matt’s observation skills and his mental awareness levels in the simulator and they had moved on to what Matt called the fun stuff by the time Terry came down with their meal. 

      The fun stuff was the scenarios that Bruce, with Terry’s help at times, had put together to train Matt in deductive reasoning. Since Bruce tended to use a lot of elements of past cases from the time when he was Batman in making the situations for Matt to solve, it was like getting a peek into the past for the boy. Every time Matt saw something new from Gotham’s history, it was a treat, and something that he treasured. 

     Terry passed out the plates he had made up, and then as he sat down to eat he glanced at the screen of the large computer Matt and Bruce were sitting in front of to see which case Matt was working on. “Oooh, this one. This is a good one Matt – I should know since I helped put it together.” 

     Matt stopped eating long enough to clap his hands together and say in a giddy manner, “Oh goody! I guess that means I shouldn’t have to think too, too hard to solve it.” Then with that said Matt went back to eating, totally ignoring Terry. His older brother was going to get his turn at Matt soon enough, Matt didn’t need to deal with him now. 

     Terry just threw his younger brother a dirty look, wondering again of the merits of being an only child, and finished his meal. Then he went to warm up, finding a peace in the measured movements of the Chinte kata. As soon as Matt finished both his meal and the scenario that Bruce had put him to solving, he joined his brother on the practice mats. Not quite as smooth in his motions as Terry was, Matt still was able to keep up with the slowly increasing pace of the kata until it came to its prearranged end. 

     Terry of course had noticed the minute Matt had joined him and had watched out of the corner of his eye as his brother mimicked his movements. Going back to the beginning of the Chinte routine Terry surreptitiously watched his brother’s every movement. He had noted every weak area in Matt’s execution of the kata and quickly came up with a strategy to remedy those weaknesses during the night’s session. Terry brought the second run to an end and turning to face his brother said, “Okay Matt, we’re going to do something different tonight. Since you have picked up the majority of the katas we have taught you so well, I think that its time that we try to do some mirror sparring.” 

      Matt perked up, this sounded interesting and promising. To date, Terry and Bruce had focused his physical side of the training on stuff other than the fighting. They had him doing stuff like gymnastics, weight training and of course the obligatory solitary katas – what had seemed like a never-ending parade of the damn things to Matt. Now though it seemed as if they were taking him up to the next level in the martial arts and he and Terry were actually going to spar. ‘Cool, it’s about bloody time!’ He’d been working hard to do everything that they had asked of him right, and now it seemed like he’d succeeded. Terry caught his attention again as he spoke. 

      “Here’s how it works – we’re going to go through the Chinte kata again, but this time we are going to face each other. This is so you can see clearly how I am moving and positioning myself and do your best to match your motions and form to mine. There are only a few places where there will be contact, but I think that you’ll be surprised at how natural they feel.” 

      Matt nodded eagerly as he moved into position across from Terry in the center of the practice mat. Terry continued, “I think we’ll do three repetitions, gaining speed with each one. I’m gong to give you a signal when I really want you to pay attention – there are a few places that you have to work on. You have any questions?” 

     Matt shook his head and said, “No.” He was straining not to bounce in place, “Can we just get started already?” 

     Terry just laughed and said, “Okay, okay.” 

     Together they punched their arms toward the ground and yelled “Yoi!” Then they moved into the routine, arms and legs moving in the measured motions without conscious thought. Matt found that Terry had been right when they made contact with each other in the routine – it did feel very natural, and light though the touches were, they just seemed to fit. The times when Terry would signal for Matt to pay attention, he would also slow down so that Matt could get a really good look at everything that he was doing. By the third repetition Terry wasn’t signaling for Matt to pay attention near as many times as he had in the first two rounds. Matt knew that the lack meant that he had gotten the stances Terry glossed over right. 

      “Good! Very good, now that you have come close to mastering the Chinte kata, you can practice it at home. Now it’s time to move on to the other discipline that we have been working on.” Terry’s grin went from congratulatory to feral and Matt groaned. 

      “Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know, it’s time for you to ambush me every way you can think of - and a few more besides that Bruce thinks up - while I get to try and get away from you. It always makes me feel like some kind of squirmy bug trapped by a heavy wet rug. It’s exhausting and I always end up black-and-blue after these little exercises. As well as so stiff the next day that it’s a miracle that I can make it to school, let alone participate during the day’s events.” 

      Terry laughed at the disgust Matt showed for the grappling part of the training, but he wasn’t going to let his younger brother get away without doing it. It was an essential part of learning how to protect yourself. Learning how to get away instinctively when someone grabs you meant the difference between life and death at times. They both knew it from experiences in the past, after all. Matt was just letting of some steam by beaking off. 

      “Ready then?” Terry asked Matt and the younger boy reluctantly nodded, it was the only warning Matt got. Terry had been circling around behind him as he spoke, and then suddenly his large arms were wrapped around Matt’s upper body, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him from the ground. 

     “Aahhh!” Matt couldn’t help yelling involuntarily in his surprise. ‘Damn, that was quick!’ Normally Terry waited a few minutes before he pounced – Matt thought that Terry did that because he liked to draw out the suspense and set his younger brother totally on edge before pouncing. 

      Matt soon regained his equilibrium and threw his head back towards Terry’s face at the same time he kicked for Terry’s knees, knowing that when Terry leaned back to avoid the face hit he would leave his knees vulnerable. It worked just as Matt had planned – his foot connected solidly with Terry’s knee and made it buckle. They fell together to the mat and Terry’s hold loosened enough when they hit that Matt was able to wriggle free and make a break for it. 

     Terry of course wasn’t going to give up that easily. He scrambled after his brother’s fleeing form on his hands and knees, catching up surprisingly quickly. He made another grab at Matt, getting his ankle and in the process tripping the younger boy into stretching out his full length on the practice mat. 

     “Ooof!” The air was driven from Matt’s lungs at the impact. He lay stunned for a moment and Terry followed up on the display of weakness in a rush. He knelt behind the winded teen and put him in a half nelson while grabbing both wrists in his other hand and hauling them up to a point somewhere between Matt’s shoulder blades. Matt’s eyes watered at the pain and what little breath he had managed to get back left him again. ‘Damn, that hurts!’ He wracked his brain for a way to break free of the hold his brother had him pinned in. ‘Hopefully,’ he thought ‘without dislocating my shoulders in the process because that would just be a bad scene.’ 

      Suddenly an alarm went off, echoing throughout the cave eerily and distracting Terry from the hold he had Matt in. When Terry’s grip loosened, Matt took advantage of the opening presented without conscious thought. Acting purely on the instincts that Terry and Bruce had been drilling relentlessly into him until the point where they were ingrained, Matt roughly elbowed his older brother in the gut and broke free. 

     “Ooof!” His breath forced out in a whoosh, Terry fell onto his back on the mat. He managed to get his breath back. “Ow.” 

     “Ter! Ohmygod Terry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean – ” Matt started to apologize in a rush feeling mortified. 

     Terry cut him off laughing, “Matt, don’t worry about it. I’ve had worse, believe me.” He ruefully rubbed at his stomach. “Mind you, that was a pretty good elbow you got me with.” 

      Matt helped his older brother to his feet still feeling bad about attacking when he knew that his brother’s attention hadn’t been on the struggle. Terry saw the look on Matt’s face and said, “Listen Matt, look on this as a good thing – your reflexes are getting to the point where they are automatic, which is what Bruce and I have been aiming for.” 

      “Yeah – okay.” Matt didn’t sound convinced, “but I should’ve known that your mind wasn’t going to be on what we were doing when I heard the alarm – y’know, backed off.” 

      Terry playfully socked Matt in the arm, “Go hit the showers twip and then get your gear ready to go.” Matt sighed as he noticed that Terry had already begun to slip into ‘Bat’ mode.  “I’ve got to go and talk to Bruce alright?” 

      Matt sighed again as he did what he had been told. He knew that the alarm going off had signaled an end to any more lessons for him tonight. After he had soaked away most of his aches and pains in a long hot shower, he got out and got his stuff together. When he came out of the bathing area of the cave he wasn’t surprised to find that somehow Terry had already managed to shower and suit up except for the cowl, and was standing by the large Cray system talking to Bruce. Really he had expected it. 

      Terry spotted him right away. “Let’s go kiddo, I’ll drop you off at home in the Batmobile on my way out tonight.” He started to rapidly walk towards the sleek black craft expecting Matt to follow, which he did after calling a quick goodbye to Bruce where he was sitting at the large computer. 

            ~*~ 

      Terry eased the Batmobile into the narrow alley beside his old apartment building where Matt and his mother still lived. He watched with some amusement as Matt laboriously tottered out of the small back seat he and Bruce had installed in the vehicle after they had found a need for one. It seemed that even during the short journey from the Batcave to the city had been long enough for Matt’s poor overworked and abused muscles to totally stiffen up on him.  

      Matt hissed painfully as his feet touched the concrete and his knees almost buckled when he tried to take his first step. Terry had to lean out of the cockpit and catch him before he fell. 

      “Are you going to be able to make it upstairs on your own Matt?” Terry asked with some concern. 

      “Yeah, don’t fret Ter – I just have to get my land legs back again after suffering the crazy way you pilot that thing.” Matt said jokingly and to prove it he pushed off from the side of the car he had been leaning against. He gave his brother a small backwards wave as he walked away and went into the building. Terry pulled the Batmobile into the air and waited, watching until the lights came on in the proper apartment. Then knowing that Matt had made it home safely, he streaked off. 

      Unbeknownst to the two brothers, someone had witnessed their parting. Beth stood unmoving in the deep shadows of the building across the street. In her hands forgotten lay the rapidly melting tub of ice cream her mother had originally sent her out to get before the stores closed. 

      ‘That was Matt,’ she thought stunned. She had seen the Batmobile and had hidden so that she could see what her hero was doing in her neighborhood, but then the canopy had slid back and her boyfriend, Matt McGinnis, had gotten out of the infamous craft. ‘What was Matt doing with the Batman? Did he know him, or was there another reason he had been sharing company with the cowled hero?’ 

     A large wet plopping sound brought her back to herself. Her ice cream was melting. ‘One thing is for certain,’ she thought with resolution. ‘Matt had better tell me about this tomorrow _without_ me having to prompt him, or I’m not going to be very happy with him.’ She decided to give him all day at school and the entire walk home afterwards to say something, after that she would confront him. With that plan of action firmly in place in her mind, she headed home before the ice cream she had been sent out for was totally unsalvageable. 

            ~*~ 

      Terry wasn’t surprised to find that the glass-man was long gone by the time he managed to get to the lab that was the site of the latest vandalism. Thankfully, this time the crystalline defacer hadn’t taken out any of the lab’s surveillance cameras or the audio pickups, but that just might have been due to lucky placement. The lab’s security was much better than a lowly warehouse’s. 

     ‘Good, this time we’ll at least be able to hear what Mr. Greenjeans there is ranting. It just might provide us with some valuable information.’ He made short work of downloading the pertinent data from the recorders and then tucked the chips safely into compartments in his utility belt to take back to the cave and go over with Bruce later. Then he made another circuit of the mostly trashed main floor of the lab, hoping to find something of a clue amidst the wreckage. 

      It was when he was straightening out one of the larger pieces of lab equipment from its drunken lean against the nearest wall that he found something. When he took his hands from the large machine after righting it, he saw that his dark gloves had picked up a sprinkling of a white powder that glistened strangely. Looking around the immediate area further he soon found the source – a small pile of the same powder was in the right angle where the floor and wall met. Terry scooped up a sample for later testing and secreted that away in another compartment of his utility belt. Then he went back to his interrupted circuit of the lab looking for any more clues that he might find. 

     He didn’t find anything until he left the building. Circling the outside of the lab was a carefully landscaped lawn, which is why the deep footprints he found were so out of place. For one thing, he didn’t think that the company he and Wayne used would be so sloppy with their work to leave such obvious evidence of carelessness, and for the other they were recent and very deep. Too deep to have been made by any kind of ordinary man. 

     Terry’s instincts prompted him to measure the depth of the prints, he had a feeling that the information might prove useful later on, and then he followed the tracks backwards along their path. He wasn’t expecting the lead to pan out, so he wasn’t too disappointed when the trail came to an abrupt end at the edge of the lawn. Ticked off, Terry growled to himself in frustration, ‘for someone who causes so much bloody damage, this guy sure knows how to leave no traces.’ Not having anything else to do, Terry headed back to the cave to drop off the evidence he had managed to gather before heading out into the night again, this time for his regular patrol. 

            ~*~ 

      Terry and Bruce were sitting in Bruce’s inner office talking about what had been happening to the company lately and about the results of the tests Bruce had run while Terry had been on patrol the night before. 

      “Fayalite? What in the hell is fayalite Bruce, and how can this guy be made of it?” 

      “Fayalite is a very rarely occurring gemstone, you would never find a sample occurring in nature as pure as this guy seems to be. Part of the Olivine family of silicates, Fayalite is the iron rich, magnesium light version, which is not technically a mineral but a gemstone called peridot. Colours shade from the rare dark emerald green like our fellow, to a pale yellowish green, which is much more common. And for how a man could be made of it – and still be able to move at all – I have no clue.” 

      “Okay, so this is another one to dump under ‘Freaky and not possible except that it’s happening anyway’ in the ‘Bat’-files.” Bruce snorted at Terry’s ridiculous file name. “Now how does our knowing what this guy is made of help us stop him?” 

      Bruce shook his head, “I don’t know yet. We’re going to have to do some research on the properties to find a weakness we can exploit.” 

      Terry frowned and sat back in his chair to think, his hand idly tapping the folder he’d brought from his office. It was the file that the ‘Captain’ had put together at Terry’s request of the first attack on a Wayne Enterprises property by the mysterious ‘glass’ man.  His fingertips hit the disc in the folder with a ‘thock’ instead of the ‘thunk’ he had been getting from the wood alone and he stilled. He asked slowly, “Have you had a chance to watch any of the footage of this guy yet Bruce?” Bruce shook his head ‘no’.  

     Terry got up and put the disc into the player on the wall. “I’ve seen most of this first one already, but maybe you’ll see something I missed. Then we can watch the other one that I downloaded last night…” 

      Bruce waved Terry into silence as he watched the screen intently. The old man didn’t make a sound as the footage of the warehouse being destroyed looped through twice. Then he stopped it and motioned curtly for Terry to put the data chips from the lab in so that he could watch and listen to the second attack. 

      " _You’re going to rue the day that you mocked me Wayne, I’m going to make you eat your hubris! Your company and you through it are going to pay for your sins – you hear me? You are going to pay! I came to you for help once Wayne and you laughed at me, now reap what you have sown old man…”_ Terry turned the sound way down. 

      “Wow, this sounds personal Bruce. This guy seems to have a real hate-on for you and for your company. Does anything about the guy seem even a little bit familiar to you?” Terry asked his mentor curiously. Bruce just flashed him a look from under his lowered brows that spoke volumes. 

      “No, of course not. I would have said something had that been the case, and Terry you know perfectly well that you can’t run a multi-billion conglomerate without stepping on a few toes here and there. It’s just not physically possible.” Bruce said testily. 

      A quiet alarm began to sound behind a hidden panel in the office. Bruce swiveled his chair to see what was setting it off. “I linked the Crays into a backdoor of Wayne Enterprises security web and we have a hit, our mysterious man with a grudge is hitting another company property.” Bruce explained at Terry’s inquiringly raised eyebrow. 

     “Go suit up and see if you can catch him still at the site. Oh and Terry – ” Bruce paused and Terry looked back to meet his eyes, “I wouldn’t advise getting in his way, the suit won’t protect you from a fanatic who weighs in at over 650 pounds swinging at you. I figured out from the depth of those footprints you found how heavy the person who made them was. It matches what I know of the specific gravity of fayalite too.  So for now, if you can just get him talking to you and find out what his beef with me is specifically, I’d be more than happy.” 

     Terry nodded and left to get into his other ‘work’ clothes. 

          ~*~ 

     Terry was kneeling on the ground, looking for some signs that the vandal who had struck at the abandoned manufactory was the same ‘gemstone’ man who had destroyed the other Wayne Enterprises properties. However, the old building had already been in a bad state of repair due to neglect after Wayne Enterprises had stopped using it. So when the local ‘green eyed monster’ had attacked, he hadn’t had much trouble in pretty much totally razing all that had been left standing. Terry snorted his disgust – finding anything useful in the mess their not-so-little green man left behind was beginning to feel like looking for the proverbial ‘needle in a haystack’. 

      Terry sat back on his haunches and put his hand to his ear, “I know that you can see this Bruce. It’s a mess. I don’t think that there’s anything to find here, except of course maybe some more of those deep footprints. Anything, hell – everything here has been reduced to useless splinters.” 

      >> Find me the footprints Terry. We’re going to need irrefutable proof that this one is linked to all the other attacks – for insurance purposes if nothing else. << 

      “You’re the boss.” Terry said and sighed as he looked over the widespread destruction in front of him. He was trying to guess where his best bet would be to find some of those footprints Bruce wanted, hopefully without having to lift the remnants of about half the building. ‘God, what a pain – hmm, I might be able to get a better idea from the air.’ He rose smoothly to his feet in a fluid movement that dancers would have envied, but then paused for a moment before taking off as he sensed someone watching him. 

      Snapping his wings open while simultaneously firing his boot rockets, Terry succeeded in launching himself into the air within seconds. Hovering, he turned to watch the weighted net he had evaded tangle on the ground where he had been standing only moments before. Tracking back along the net’s trajectory, Terry saw who had thrown it. “Stalker.” 

      The tall, lean hunter unfolded his long limbs from the shadows of the wreckage he had been using for a blind and smiled affably at the hovering hero. “Hello Bat-man, we meet again.” 

      Terry nodded and smiled sardonically. “Yes, and just so there’s no mistakes, or me getting accused of misjudging you this time around either. Can I ask you what you are doing here – or does that net tell me everything I need to know?” 

      “I have watched you Batman, watched as you grew from a mere bat-pup to a fully grown Bat – one who is strong, healthy and in his prime. That is ultimately the best time for a beast to become prey for the hunt, for that is when the challenge is at its highest. I told you the last time we met Batman, that when you died it would be by my hand, and my hand alone. I have decided it is time, now, for my pursuit of you to begin.” 

      “Fair enough,” Terry said evenly, still hovering above, as he kept a careful eye on the hunter below him. “But now is really not a good time for me. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to reschedule.” 

      Stalker, unbalanced by the total lack of fear in Terry’s voice, paused in mid-reach for his telescoping spear. Surprise clearly evident on his features. ‘What was this – his prey was not afraid?’ When Stalker looked up he could plainly see the smirk on the Batman’s face, even through the mask. No – it was very plain that the man in the suit was not troubled at all by Stalker’s intentions to hunt him. In fact – it looked like he was more amused than anything else. Stalker frowned and the Batman spoke lightly, mockingly to him. 

      “Hey, no need for the long face Stalker  – you’re more than welcome to hunt me later. It’s just that I’m hunting someone myself at the moment and I don’t feel like trying to juggle being the pursuer and the pursue-e, if you catch my drift. I’m having enough trouble alone in trying to track down my guy.” 

      “Your quarry, he is elusive?” Stalker asked, the dark mood he had been falling into lightening. When Batman hadn’t been scared of the thought of being hunted, Stalker had gotten depressed. After all, how much of a hunt can you have when your prey is laughing at you? You don’t – if you don’t have fright and flight it isn’t a hunt at all, is it? But perhaps his trip to Gotham hadn’t been wasted this time either – he and the Batman had sought out Falseface together, maybe they could work in concert once again? Would Batman even accept his offer of assistance if he were to make it? 

      Batman snorted, and as if he could sense that Stalker’s attention had been diverted from hunting him, descended from his cautious hovering position in the air to land a few feet from the hunter. 

      “You could say that, but only in certain ways.” He gestured to the wreckage they both now stood in, “This mess here is his handiwork. It was a freely standing, if a bit on the rickety side, building only a few hours ago.” 

      “One man did all this – how?” Stalker asked, taken aback as he looked around himself. ‘No wonder the Batman wasn’t impressed with the danger I might have represented. It looks like he’s already busy with something more dangerous than I.’ Stalker could feel the seductive, siren-like call for a hunt run through him. The urge for him to start tracking the prey Batman sought was strong, but he didn’t want to step on any toes – literally or proverbially – so he made his offer. The one he’d been toying with since he’d figured out that his hunt of the Batman was a washout. 

     “Batman, you and I worked together once before, when we were seeking the criminal Falseface. That time the NSA had requested my services, and you volunteered to aid me. Now I think that I am in the position to return the aid you gave me then, if you would be willing to accept it. I would give you my oath that no harm would come to you from me while we are allies as an assurance.” 

     He had surprised the Batman. Reading the darkly clad man’s body language, he could tell. Not that the Batman was making an effort to hide the way he was feeling, something that he could easily do if he really wanted to, as Stalker was well aware. He obviously didn’t care about whatever conclusions Stalker might arrive at from his openness, or did he? 

     When the Batman had looked like he had let down his guard Stalker had relaxed also, and it now looked like that had been the vigilante’s goal all along. When the hunter had relaxed, so too had his stoic demeanor and Batman was able to read his intentions –good or bad – with ease. ‘Devious,’ Stalker was appreciative of sound tactics, ‘but not mean spirited about it. I can deal with that.’ 

      Apparently, what Batman saw when Stalker’s guard was down appeased him because his feigned frankness became genuine – or at least that is what the hunter guessed at from the man’s actions. Stalker looked askance at the masked hero as he seemingly started muttering to himself, pausing here and there like he was having a conversation with an invisible friend. He realized fairly quickly that Batman was communicating with someone via a radio link and was startled – somehow he had never really thought of the Batman working with anyone else. He always gave the impression of being a solitary type, not one who would willingly have anyone watching his back. 

      Suddenly, the dark defender of Gotham’s nights laughed, startling the lean hunter yet again in the short duration, and then he looked Stalker directly in the eyes. Even through the white eye-patches in the mask Stalker could sense the sheer power behind the gaze leveled on him and the weight of that stare was a bit disconcerting. 

      “Here’s the deal – you and I both know that you know what I look like under this mask, and if you watch the vids at all you probably also know who I am.” 

      Stalker nodded, that the Batman’s alter ego was a high-powered and very visible businessman had been a bit of an eye-opener to the hunter. Unexpected was an understatement. 

     “Well, if you are going to help me with this, then you are going to have to follow me back to my other job, and I want no mistakes made there. Let me put it this way – since you are going to end up meeting a lot of people that I work with and others that I care about while you’re working with me, I’m going to want you to extend your oath to me of an ally to them as well. You use or harm _any_ of them, and you will find yourself has become the hunted rather than the hunter  – I hope I am making myself clear.” 

     “Certainly, I pledge to you on my honour that I will cause no-one any ill while I am in Gotham – except, of course, your prey.” It was a fairly easy promise to make, as Stalker had already been having doubts about his pursuit of the Batman as it was. 

     Batman cocked his head as if he were weighing the conviction behind the hunter’s words. Then seemingly satisfied with the first condition being met – he grinned. Stalker immediately felt wary at the expression. What could make a dark being smile so? 

      “Okay then, here’s the other thing – you can’t walk into Wayne Enterprises looking like that –” Batman indicated with a wave of his gloved hand Stalker’s near nakedness, which was only interrupted by the briefest of loincloths and numerous tattoos. “My Boss insists that you have to get some respectable clothes to wear while you’re there.” 

      Stalker raised an eyebrow at the information of Batman having a ‘boss’, he guessed that is who he had been talking to when he muttered out loud to nobody. Then what the dark clad man and his ‘boss’ had requested sank in – they wanted him to wear western clothing. He couldn’t stop the look of disgust from passing over his face the idea gave him as he said, “The clothes you wish me to wear are very constricting and uncomfortable, but do not worry yourselves about any improprieties - I am able to accommodate you.” 

      Terry agreed with Stalker’s assessment of a business suit, but he really couldn’t see how the loincloth could be any less uncomfortable. He said as much to Bruce over the com-link and was rewarded with only a long-suffering sigh from his mentor before a very loud and final click let him know that Bruce had signed off. As he led Stalker to Wayne Enterprises with a couple of quick detours for their wardrobe changes, Terry snickered quietly. God – he still loved to do stuff like that to the old man, it was too funny. 

            ~*~ 

      Matt felt very uncomfortable, like somehow overnight he had sprouted a second head or something. Beth kept throwing him these really strange looks throughout the school day – he almost thought they were suspicious glares and he couldn’t think of any reason for her to be either suspicious _or_ angry. He was at a loss, he didn’t know what could have happened overnight to change her from the girl who had given him that toe curling kiss yesterday at her door when he dropped her off, to now. 

      The mental discomfort from her sudden suspicious scrutiny added to the physical discomfort he was still in from his exertions of the night before were combining to make one hell of a miserable day. Nevertheless, the end of the school day found him leaning up against his locker in the usual pose, waiting for Beth to show up so that he could walk her home. Matt was worried about his girlfriend, her personality over the day had been so off from her normal manner. He began to worry even more when she showed up at her locker much earlier than she normally did and without any of their friends in tow – something big was definitely up. Matt knew from his training with Bruce and Terry that people didn’t change their patterns like this for no reason, there was always something that had acted as a catalyst. 

      Beth still hadn’t said a word, not to him or anyone else. In fact, their entire walk to her place was done with an uncomfortable silence hanging between the two of them. Punctuated only by more of those strange looks from Beth, the same ones that she had been throwing his way the entire day. Matt was starting to get really tired of them, especially when he was very aware of every single one she threw at him. She might have thought that she was being subtle and only doing it when he wasn’t paying attention, but he was _always_ paying attention nowadays. He noticed everything going on around and directed at him, and Beth – bless her – wasn’t the best at being subtle anyway. 

      As the distinctly chilly walk drew to an end, Matt watched Beth carefully from the corner of his eye. He was trying to think of a tactful way to bring up her odd behavior over the course of the day. When they had finally reached her doorstep, Matt couldn’t take it any longer – he had to know what the hell was up with her – so he decided to just bite the bullet and come out and ask her. 

      “So Beth – ” he said trying to sound casual and concerned at the same time, “you’ve been acting kinda strange all day – is there anything bothering you? Something happen that you care to tell me about?” 

      He involuntarily flinched when she spun around on her top step to face him – he was still standing on the sidewalk so they were eye to eye – and her eyes were furious. Her voice when she spoke was at odds with the expression in her eyes, it was almost cloyingly sweet. Even if Matt hadn’t seen the look in her eyes, he would have taken that as a danger sign anyway – Beth was not known for having a sweetness and light kind of disposition. 

      “Bothering me? Why ever would you think that there was anything bothering me Matt? What about you? Is there something that you would care to tell _me_ about? Say – something that you know I would find very interesting?” 

      Matt was beyond confused, he had no idea what his girlfriend was trying to get at with her questions to him. Shaking his head slowly back and forth he said cautiously, “Nooo…” 

      Beth stomped a foot in anger at his answer and Matt blinked. Amused he thought, ‘did she actually just do something as clichéd as stomping her foot?’ Then his amusement at Beth’s actions dried up, as she demanded with narrow eyes. 

      “No? So I guess that you don’t think the fact that your getting a ride in the Batmobile last night, and that you seemed awfully chummy with Batman too, is something that I would find interesting at all?” 

      Matt’s mouth hung open with shock. ‘She had seen Terry dropping him off last night! How?’ Then Beth’s tone sunk in and Matt’s shock and fright morphed into anger. “How the hell would you know anything about the Batmobile dropping me off last night? Were you spying on me or something?” he snapped. 

      “Oh aren’t you full of yourself? No, I wasn’t spying for your information – I was just in the right place at the right time because my mom had sent me out for ice cream.” Beth spat out angrily, and then in a lightening quick change of mood, her face crumpled and she started to cry. 

      Matt immediately felt like a heel for yelling at her and began to reach out to comfort the crying girl. After all, it wasn’t Beth’s fault that Terry had been in a hurry last night and so had been a bit more careless than usual, but Beth wasn’t about to let Matt comfort her. She jerked away before he even touched her and ran still crying into her house, loudly slamming the door shut behind her. 

Great, now what was he going to do? Beth was royally pissed at him and Terry and Bruce weren’t going to be all that thrilled with recent developments either. Matt looked mournfully at Beth’s front door and sighed sadly. Then he jammed his fisted hands into his jeans pockets and walked stiffly away. This was turning into a record crappy day. 

            ~*~ 

     Matt blindly walked into his brother’s outer office a half hour after dropping Beth off at her door. He was a bit preoccupied by his fight with Beth - how to tell Terry what it had been about? He just knew that Terry was going to be ticked off. He also knew what their carelessness meant. Matt could kiss any more rides in the Batmobile goodbye, at least for the foreseeable future, possibly forever. So the fact that he didn’t see the tall, well-dressed dark-skinned man sitting in one of the chairs littering the room was excusable. He didn’t notice the man, not until he deliberately drew Matt’s attention by speaking to him. 

     “You have grown much dramatic one, no-one could use you as bait anymore, could they?” 

     The cultured and rich voice was one that Matt wasn’t likely to ever forget. He stopped dead in his tracks and spun on his heel to face the speaker, falling automatically into a defensive crouch. The man seemed to approve of Matt’s wariness, because he smiled. 

     “You!” Matt stared at the Stalker, white-faced. “What are _you_ doing here – in _my_ brother’s office?” 

     Terry had heard Matt’s panicked voice in his office because he quickly came out and tried to calm his brother down. “Relax Matt, he’s here by _my_ invitation.” 

     “Invitation? Yours?” Matt exploded incredulously. “Ter – ” 

     “Yes, my invitation.” Terry cut off whatever else Matt had been about to say. “Now c’mon into my office and I’ll explain.” Terry tried to guide his younger brother’s feet into walking in the right direction, but his legs had locked into place. ‘Dammit! I totally forgot to take what Matt’s reaction might be into account when I brought Stalker back here.’ Even though Matt was no longer what anyone could call a lightweight, Terry could see no other way out of this situation. He shrugged mentally, and bodily picked his younger brother up – seemingly without effort – to carry him into his inner office. 

     Neither Terry nor Matt saw the Stalker’s raised eyebrow at this casual display of strength from the man he knew to be Batman. Stalker had been impressed many times already by the man the ‘boy Bat-man’ had grown into. The first was when he had met the Batman early this afternoon and the cowled hero hadn’t been frightened or cowed at Stalker’s attack. Then he had been impressed a second time when the Batman had accepted Stalker’s offer to help. And yet again when he accepted Stalker’s word as his bond, that he would not bring harm to any of his loved ones. 

     Such honour was rare among men in the day and age they lived in – rare enough that he began to question his hunt of the man the bat-spirit inhabited. This last unthinking show of physical power from Terry, along with the care he had shown his younger sibling, had just reinforced Stalker’s doubts. This was not a man to be hunted - glorious though the hunt might have been - this was a man you held in high esteem. 

      While Stalker ruminated on his former prey’s honour and worth, Terry managed to get his younger brother into his private office. Terry also somehow contrived to get the door closed behind them without ignominiously dropping Matt, something Matt would be extremely grateful for when he came back to himself. Which he did, as soon as Matt was no longer faced with his kidnapper from so long ago. 

     Safely ensconced in Terry’s private office, Matt forced his body to relax from its tense, battle-ready posture. His eyes were still more than a bit wild though, as he burst out suddenly, “Dammit Terry, what is that guy doing here? And I don’t mean just in your office here, but what is he doing in Gotham at all?” Matt knew that his older brother could see his fear and that made him cranky, so he just continued ranting. “For crying out loud Ter – the guy’s a whacko! His self-proclaimed main goal in life is to hunt you down, like some kind of wild beast, and kill you! He wants your freaking head as a trophy to hang on his freaking wall!” 

      Terry’s gaze was somber as he looked at his younger brother. He said simply, “Goals change Matt, you should know that better than anyone. Well, other than me that is.” He flashed Matt a quick grin of co-conspiracy, but then sobered again. “When certain opportunities present themselves you have to either pass on them and be left wondering – or seize them with both fists and use them to best of your ability. Stalker’s presence here is just such an opportunity. One that I have seized and am making use of for my own benefit. With the situation we are dealing with at the moment, his skills could prove very useful. And Matt, you don’t have to worry. He’s sworn an oath to me that he is not going to go after any of my loved ones while he’s here. None of them, not for any reason.” 

      Matt flushed in shame. He hated it when Terry or Bruce made him realize he was just reacting in a knee-jerk fashion rather than thinking things through. It was bad enough that he had frozen in the outer office when he saw the hunter. Trying to hide his shame behind sarcasm, he asked caustically, “So what skills of the oh-so-great hunter could Wayne Enterprises possibly have a use for – ” he paused as something occurred to him. Something he really should have remembered before. “Or is it someone else that needs Stalker’s skills?” 

     Matt wanted to smack himself in the forehead. Just because Stalker was in the offices didn’t mean that his presence there was in any way related to Wayne Enterprises. After all, the fact that Stalker knew the face under the cowl had been one of the major clues Matt had used to figure out his brother was Batman. If the hunter hadn’t known, why had he made such a point of snatching Matt way back then to use as bait for the hero? 

     “Actually Matt, it’s both. You remember what I told you and Bruce about on the drive back to the Manor last night, right?” 

      Matt nodded, frowning in puzzlement, “Yeah, something about some strange destructive man-like thing made out of a green-glass-looking type substance.” ‘Of course I haven’t forgotten,’ Matt thought with some exasperation, ‘you didn’t forget something that freaky in a hurry.’ 

      “Well, he was the reason the alarm went off, cutting our training session short last night. Greenie also struck again this afternoon – Bruce can fill you in on the details later, he’s got all the information in his office – that’s where I ran into Stalker. He’d come to Gotham on some other business, but it ended up falling through. As he was now at loose ends, he decided to seek me out and see if he could offer me any help.” Terry prudently decided not to tell Matt what the other business had really been. His younger brother really didn’t need to know what Stalker’s intentions originally had been - since he might have found that little bit of information more than a bit disturbing. 

      “Why would he do that?” Matt asked suspiciously. He could tell that his older brother wasn’t telling him the whole story, but there was enough truth to what he had been given that he couldn’t tell where the holes were. 

      “Because Matt, if you remember, I once helped him track down this guy, Falseface, that the NSA wanted. I guess he wants to help me out to return the favor – y’know, wipe the slate clean so to speak.” 

      “Oh… okay I guess.” Matt was still unsure, but knew better than to beat a dead horse, so he dropped the subject. The last thing he needed was for his brother to think he was being unreasonably stubborn about it. That’s of course when he remembered why he’d been so distracted entering Terry’s office in the first place. ‘The Beth situation – with me and Terry’s starring parts in it.’ It seemed so petty compared to what Terry was already juggling, but it wasn’t. Beth’s suspicions over what she’d seen could have serious repercussions in the long run - unless the trouble was nipped in the bud. 

      “We goofed up last night Terry,” Matt said. Now he had his brother’s wandering attention focused back in on him in a hurry. 

      “What?” 

      “Someone saw when you-know-who dropped me off. Beth Garden, my girlfriend and also Batman’s number one fan at Hamilton Hill High.” Terry raised an eyebrow. His brother was dating a girl who was a ‘bat’ enthusiast? Interesting. Matt shot Terry a speaking glare, one that told his brother to not even bother saying anything. Terry smirked at him. 

      “She was on an errand for her mother when she saw the Batmobile go into the alley. Hoping to get a better look of what might be going on, she slipped into the shadows across the street to watch. Needless to say, I am guessing she was a tad stunned to see me climbing out of the famous car. Then, of course, the way I’d wasn’t all freaked around Batman...  Well, she ended up giving me these looks at school all day that made me feel like I’d grown a second head or something. All this time she was waiting for me to say… something. I, of course, had no idea why she was acting so strange all of a sudden and so I think I might have overreacted when she confronted me on her doorstep.” 

      “Overreacted – how?” Terry asked with trepidation. He really hoped that Matt hadn’t blown it and let a fan in on the secret – that would just be a bad scene. 

      “I got angry and yelled – accused her of spying on me.” Matt said, ashamed. 

      “Her reaction to that was… ?” Terry prompted. 

      Matt flushed, “She told me that I was full of myself and started crying. When I went to go and comfort her she ran away, slamming her door in my face. I came straight here afterwards to tell you, and ask you what to do about it.” 

      Terry sighed with relief. It didn’t sound that bad really. Certainly not disaster-level like it could have been. “Matt you know that you can’t tell her right? We can’t afford to let anybody else in. There are too many non-participants involved with you, Max, and Dana as it is. We’re just going to have to come up with something that would explain it, like it was a rescue. Or is there a reason that you didn’t already offer her that as an explanation?” 

      Matt felt really dumb for missing something so obvious. “Nope, no reason – I just froze.” He rolled his eyes. “It seems to be a habit that I am getting into lately.” 

      Terry laughed at the disgusted expression on Matt’s face. He said grinning, “So saying it was a rescue wouldn’t be a problem for you – not too un-macho for a strapping fellow as yourself?” 

      Matt shook his head, “No, in fact…” he brightened up a bit. “I could even show her various bruises from our last little ‘lesson’ to back my sob story up.” It was Terry’s turn to roll his eyes, at his brother’s griping this time. 

      Matt continued slyly, “Besides, with the out-of-the-ordinary places I end up getting some of those marks, things could possibly end up getting rather interesting… ” He wiggled his eyebrows in a manner he thought looked lecherous - and Terry thought looked ludicrous. 

      Terry cuffed him upside the head and said jokingly, “You little pervert – get outta here!” Matt got, laughing. He knew talking to Terry would put everything into perspective. 

          ~*~ 

      Terry and Bruce had done it. Matt really hadn’t doubted that they would, but it was still somewhat shocking to him how fast the two of them solved crap like this on a semi-regular basis. Residue left behind at one site by their ‘glassman’ had yielded valuable information about his nature. This had helped them to figure out a way to trap ‘green and glassy’. It hadn’t really ended up being all that complicated either. It turned out that since the mineral Olivine had an incredibly high iron content, it was susceptible to magnetism. Granted, there were going to have to be some very powerful magnets to be effective – but still, it was something they could work with to capture and hold the guy. 

     Bruce, of course, had set the R&D department of Wayne Enterprises on the project immediately. Their assignment – they were to build a lightweight and portable version of a floor magnet without sacrificing any of the power potential. Amazingly, they had called back up to Bruce’s office near the end of the workday and said that they would have a working prototype by early evening. They asked if Bruce wanted to know as soon as they were done. He said yes. 

     So that is how Matt was still, at quarter after nine on a Friday night, sitting in Bruce’s office when the call came up that they had finished. He’d transferred the video game that he had been beta-testing for Terry and Max to a console in Bruce’s office so that he could keep the old man company while Terry and Stalker were off somewhere else in the complex doing who knows what. Bruce had spent the waiting time alternating between catching up on some projects he had let fall behind due to more immediate concerns, and quizzing Matt on various trivia bits out of the blue. Now though, the waiting was done and the prototype was on its way up to be demonstrated. 

     ‘Finally!’ Matt was wired after the long wait. He couldn’t wait to see the newest ‘bat-gadget’. It didn’t matter to him that the large magnet was probably only going to get used only this one time by the dark knight; it was still going to be used by Batman against a foe. That made it a bonafide bat-gadget in his books, the first new one since Matt had been around. Matt had to admit he might be making too much of nothing, but it still felt like a milestone of sorts for him. He firmly squashed the goofy grin that wanted to escape – ‘bat-clan’ members didn’t smile. Not even the peripherals, it just wasn’t the way they worked. 

      Hoping Bruce didn’t pick up on any of the stuff going on in his mind, Matt tried to keep his sillier thoughts to himself as he watched with a great deal of interest as the technicians set up the large, very powerful, floor magnet. The thing really was pretty cool, especially since it was thought up and built - for the most part - in only a matter of hours. Matt was truly in awe of the Wayne Enterprises R&D department’s innovative skills after seeing this. 

      Fascinated, Matt stared at the machine as they put things into place. What they had come up with in order to make the thing portable was mainly replacing the traditional flat metal plate with a thin wire mesh that looked strangely like a spider’s web.  It could be rolled up or folded down into a compact package. The representatives that had been sent up to demonstrate explained, as they laid it out on the floor, that the mesh would electro-statically adhere to any surface it was flattened against when the control unit was powered on. The control unit itself was pretty schway too with the way it could be set to different levels of magnetism with a simple slide – very retro. 

     The main presenting scientist from R&D attached some leads from the control unit to a board that he had plugged into the wall outlet. Bruce frowned and the presenter happened to look up in time to catch it. He gulped uneasily and hurried to explain, “I know, you specified portable sir, and it will be. The leads going to the board are what the power pack is going to be attached to. The board is just a metering tool telling us which rating of power pack we are going to need for it.” 

     Bruce’s face smoothed out and he nodded in understanding. It was the last step for any gadget after all the other bugs had been worked out. He motioned for them to continue. 

     Pushing the slide over to the least magnetic setting, the presenting scientist had his assistant set up four plastic tubes of differing gauge strengths and topping them all with identical metal balls. Then he waved his assistant to hurry back out of the way as he turned back to face Bruce and Matt. 

      Clearing his throat nervously, the R&D representative began to speak. “The netting is made up of a voluted spiral of magnetized wire held in place statically with precisely placed radials, each strand of which is wound in copper for maximum electro-magnetic power range.” Heads nodded, giving him his cue to continue: 

     “Okay, I am going to demonstrate the power settings now using a form of reverse relative gravity. That is, what I mean is that all the metal balls are the same density, weight and composition and the only thing that is different about when the magnet will affect them is the strength of the tube keeping it up. 

     As I route more power to the magnetic net via the slide on the remote here-” he nervously held the remote up to show them what he was talking about, “- what will happen is as the magnet gets powerful enough it will pull the ball down, overcoming any resistance keeping it away. Any questions so far?” 

     He looked to see if he had lost his audience, but neither young Matt McGinnis’ nor the elderly Bruce Wayne’s eyes were glassy from incomprehension or boredom. And neither of them looked like they needed any clarification on anything he had already said. ‘Huh, fancy that.’ Their obvious intelligence had the unfortunate effect of unnerving the poor scientist, who was used to having to put everything into much plainer words. It made him stumble a bit over the rest of his explanation. 

     “Er, um – well, I guess there’s no questions so – umm, that just leaves the technical specs of the test here. Using a formula that takes into account the strength of each gauge of tube and the amperages…” 

     Frowning, Matt tried to make some conversions on the fly based on what was being explained to them. ‘Hmm, if I am understanding what this guy is saying right, then I think that the last tube would be the equivalent of 1000lbs – that really isn’t enough. Not when our glassy green vandal is approximately 650lbs and can put up one hell of a counterforce against whatever we are using to try and pin him…’ Damn his head hurt. 

     Seeing the unsure look on Matt’s face, the scientist was quick to reassure both members of his audience, “Of course that’s only a fraction of what this baby will be able to pull – we’ve tentatively rated it for much more – but for demonstration purposes, this is the most practical.” Flustered beyond any notions that he might have made to being polished in his presentation, the scientist turned to watch as he began to slide the control lever over. It seemed like he had barely began to move it before the first tube was crushed with a loud noise and the metal ball thumped to the nets’ surface. The floor shook with the impact. Each successive pipe was crushed and its ball was pulled inexorably down as the scientist from R&D kept slowly nudging the slide over. 

     The noise from each ball’s landing barely faded before the next would go down. Matt felt the floor quivering, like some kind of a giant had taken four steps across it. But then, when the shaking should have stopped – it didn’t. It kept going. And the dull roaring Matt had thought was echoes from the loud crashes earlier was coming from outside of the office as well. ‘What the?’ 

     He wasn’t left wondering for long; as the closed door to Bruce’s office was smashed open and the ‘glassman’ burst into the room, roaring. The expensive indirect lighting of Bruce’s office made the roughly human-shaped green form glow in an eerie manner. ‘Creepy.’ Matt thought with a slight grimace. It was obvious that the intruder hadn’t expected anyone to still be there. He stopped dead and fell silent at the sight of the other people in the room. 

     ‘Damn, there is really no way for this to end good.’ Matt thought tensely as he prepared to defend whomever the guy went after. It was then that Bruce caught Matt’s attention and motioned towards the _still powered up magnet_ – ‘Yes!’ If he could manage to turn up the power for the magnet and maneuver the freaky gem-guy it would all be over. He would be trapped, end of story. 

     Trying not to be obvious about it, Matt looked over to where the remote was still grasped, lax, in the terrified presenter’s hand. Not the best scenario, but workable. Matt was going to have to launch himself across the room and grab the remote, probably ending up somewhere on the magnetized mesh when he slowed down. He was then going to have to try and make sure he slid the silly retro lever the right way, increasing rather than decreasing the magnetism, hopefully all before ‘freaky gem-guy’ caught him or swatted him flat like a bug. The rather gory mental image the thought summoned made Matt shudder. ‘Oooh, not such a good visual to get in your head when you need all your concentration, Matty-boy.’ 

      Chastising himself, Matt thought inwardly ‘actions more than words, c’mon now.’ He clearly visualized what he wanted to happen, and then sprung forward, putting it into motion. Coiling his legs under him, Matt pushed off. He cleared almost the entire area of the room with one leap, which was good. What wasn’t so good was how fast ‘glassman’ responded to the sudden move. Matt had barely managed to get his hands on the remote when he felt himself being batted away back towards Bruce. All he could think after he landed was, ‘Ow.’ 

     ‘Well, that was less than a stellar success,’ Matt thought derisively as he started to stealthily inch back towards Bruce. His breath caught and his eyes filled with water involuntarily with the pain when something in his left side ground together at the slight motion, ‘Damn, the bastard musta cracked a few ribs when he hit me.’ This was really not going to be fun. He was drawn out of his single-minded drive of  ‘get back to Bruce’ when he heard the freaky gem-guy start yelling. 

     “No! I will not be trapped again! Do you hear me Wayne? I won’t let you trap me again!” 

     Matt looked back to the last place he had seen ‘greenie’, “Wha-?” What on earth could have his gritty knickers in such a knot? ‘Oh.’ Matt saw what. It seemed that in his haste to swat Matt, ‘freaky gem-guy’ had stepped onto a corner of the magnetic netting and now his one foot was stuck fast – well, sorta. The power setting wasn’t set very high on the magnet so the guy’s frantic pulling of his foot, trying to get free, was lifting the netting off the floor. 

     That is of course when Stalker and Terry - suited up as Batman - made their entrance, panicking the guy even more. ‘Wonderful, could things get any more tense?’ He should have kept a lid on his thoughts because apparently they could - and did. 

     The sight of the city’s hero seemed to galvanize freaky gem-guy back into focus. He stopped his panicky pulling and ripped his foot free, hard enough that he left a few pieces, cleanly sheared off, still stuck fast to the netting. He didn’t seem to miss them though, as he lunged across the room to grab up first Matt and then Bruce, summarily slinging them over both shoulders, before spinning and facing Batman and Stalker. 

      ‘Ow. Okay - not the most gentle handling I’ve ever had,’ Matt thought with a wince as his ribs protested the summary scooping and slinging. He worried for a moment about how Bruce would hold up to the rough handling – sure, Matt knew Bruce was a tough old guy and could deal with a lot of stuff, but the operative word in that was old. Matt’s attention was drawn back to the office when he heard the Glassman bark in a way honoured in time by villains everywhere, 

      “Back off Batman, and call off your freak too, or I hurt Wayne and the kid. You’ve seen what I can do to inanimate objects, what kind of damage do you think I would do to something living?” 

     “No! Don’t hurt them.” Terry backed away from the ruined doorframe, herding Stalker with him as he moved. He clearly remembered the wreckage he had sifted through, wreckage that had once been a building before this guy had tangled with it. 

     Biding for some time Terry asked, “Why are you doing this? What is your vendetta with Mr. Wayne and his company?” He was hoping for two things, one – an idea of how he could _somehow_ get Matt and Bruce away from the guy. Nope, nothing was coming to him - slaggit! And two - he might get lucky and get even a crumb of a clue about who this guy used to be or what his problem was. He didn’t. Again – nope, nothing. 

     The glassy green-hued vandal just backed out of the unobstructed doorway, holding his hostages in a tight grip as he kept a wary eye on the hero and his companion. In a ringing voice that still managed to convey his malevolence the creature warned them off, “Don’t follow me. If you do, it will not go well for these two.” 

     Terry nodded sharply, cursing inwardly. He really hated not having any information on who he was up against. It made him feel like he was bumbling around blind on an obstacle course, never very fun in his books. He had no choice but to give this guy a wide berth to make sure that Matt and Bruce weren’t harmed. The creature disappeared into the night with an astonishing amount of speed. Much faster than either Terry or Stalker would have credited it was capable of attaining by itself, let alone burdened as it had been. 

     “I shall go and see if our quarry has left us anything to track,” Stalker announced and loped off in the direction they had seen the green creature take. Terry rolled his eyes, “Yep, you do that. Me, I’ll just go and see if he left us any clues up in the office.” Terry snerked and thought irreverently, ‘You can take the guy out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the guy.’ 

     By the time that Terry made it back up to Bruce’s office and started to poke around he had gotten over his little snit at Stalker. He really hadn’t been being fair. After all, neither of them were used to working with a partner. Or were conversant with each other’s style in a way that was complimentary rather than adversarial. They would find a way to work it out. 

     His thoughts derailed, as his eye was caught by a flash of reflecting light in the area the scientists seemed to have used to set up their demonstration. Terry felt a rush of triumph. Laying on the very corner of something that looked like some kind of giant spider web were a few small shards of a familiar looking green glassy material. This could very well be the break that they were looking for, Terry thought as he quickly strode over to pick them up. It couldn’t have come at a better time - seeing as the stakes had been upped from simple vandalism to kidnapping. 

    Terry was holding one of the shards up to the light and making a satisfied sound when Stalker walked back into the room. Terry acknowledged his return with a small gesture before abruptly turning to the scientists that were still in the room. They had been trying their best to fade into the woodwork, and when Batman addressed them they jumped. “You there, tell me - is this device finished?” 

     Unfortunately for the poor guy, Batman had singled out the same man who had been presenting the magnet to Bruce and Matt. The man who - though used to giving speeches - didn’t ad-lib well under pressure. Shoved forward by his associates and sweating freely, the scientist stammered, “The magnet? Umm, no? B-but it can be, v-very soon. All w-we have left to do is to hook up the p-portable p-power supply. It should take about fifteen to twenty minutes.” 

     Batman nodded sharply, “Good. Do it, and while you’re at it – could you make the remote wireless?” 

     The scientists in the background garbled out mixed up affirmatives over each other, but the one in front still looked miserable. He stood wringing his hands and nervously sweating. Batman looked at the man levelly for a moment before he realized what was troubling him. He sighed, thinking ‘I bet Bruce never had to deal with this kind of crap.’ 

     “Listen, I don’t want any of you to get into trouble for letting me have the magnet. If there is anyone you can call to get an okay from, go ahead. I have to go and do a few things right now anyway, while you’re getting it put together.” He reassured his own unknowing workers. 

     Batman heard a funny sound and turned around to see what could be making it. It was Stalker doing a remarkably poor job of hiding laughter behind a hand. Batman/Terry grabbed the snickering Stalker by the arm and dragged him from the room before he scared anyone. He muttered under his breath to the hunter. “Shut-up already. Jeez! So I have conscientious employees, it’s not that funny.” 

     “They are so timid, like a mini-pack of rabbits milling there. Yet the one that you singled out, he was different. He was just as scared as the others of you and I, but he stood his ground. What I found humourous was that he was protecting that gadget of his from you like some kind of mother beastie would protect their cub.” 

     The mental image conjured up by Stalker’s words made Terry stop dead in his tracks for a second. He could see it almost too clearly. He had to stifle a snicker of his own before he got back on track. Frowning, he shook his head and started to walk again, berating himself. “We don’t have time for this. Matt and Bruce are in trouble, and all they have going in their favor is that so far this guy has made a point of never hurting anyone, just things – like buildings.” 

     “I am sorry. My levity at the time was perhaps misplaced.” 

     Terry was rummaging around in his belt as he listened to Stalker’s apology. Finding what he had been searching for, Terry quickly became absorbed in studying it. It was what he had picked up off the floor in the office. Preoccupied, Terry waved off the request for forgiveness, “Don’t worry about it, it’s already been forgiven.” 

     “What is that?” Stalker asked bluntly, breaking into Terry’s examination of the object. 

     “Hunh? Oh, this?” Terry held up what looked like a piece of raw gemstone for Stalker to see. “It just might be the key to finding our green friend.” 

     “How? How could such a small fragment of a gem help us find our prey?” 

     Terry laughed at the mystified expression on the hunter’s face and explained. “Because it’s not just a gem fragment, it’s a piece of him. A piece that’s been cleanly sheared off from the bottom of his foot. I think, and if I am right about where this fragment is from, then it’s going to tell us where he’s been recently. All I have to do is run a trace analysis on it and then match up the results to areas in the city.” 

     Stalker nodded in understanding. “You are a canny a hunter as I in your own manner, Batman. Different hunting grounds and prey call for their own methods of tracking, don’t they?” 

     Terry just winked. 

            ~*~ 

     Matt wasn’t happy. That was a bit of an understatement actually, he was a little beyond being unhappy. The old unused office that their captor had thrown them in as a makeshift cell wasn’t that bad, as far as cells go, not really. Most people wouldn’t even be bothered by the thick layer of dust laying over all the exposed surfaces. Unless of course, like Matt, you were suffering from a couple of cracked ribs and the attendant wish to not breathe, or move at all for that matter. Then the dust became more than a bit problematic. Every breath taken or the slightest shift of weight became a minefield, possibly full of pain. 

     With that in mind, Matt gingerly shifted position, being careful to not stir the dust any more than possible. He was trying to find a way to sit that didn’t hurt. He wasn’t having much luck at it he thought as something inside grated that wasn’t supposed to. He winced. Bruce must have noticed. 

     “How you holding up kid?” 

     “Honestly? Could be better.” Matt put a hand to his left side where the pain was the worst. “I think a few of my ribs got cracked when the green freaky glass guy used me for batting practice back at the office there.” 

      Bruce grunted and said, “Breathe shallowly and don’t move around much.” 

     Matt rolled his eyes and said dryly. “Yeah, Bruce. Believe it or not, I had pretty much figured that much out already, but thanks anyway.” 

     Low volume laughter spilled into the room from the room’s only window making both captives look towards it. It’s not like it was really a window anymore at any rate, any glass that might have been in it long since gone, but the rusting wire-mesh protective covering would still have been strong enough to hold against most things. To get in or out. Batman wasn’t part of that list. Terry made short work of the weather-fatigued metal and squeezed through to step inside the room. He said in a conversational tone, “You know I think you said pretty much exactly the same thing to me when I busted up my ribs tangling with the whole Xander/Kobra mess back in high school, Bruce. It was as useful then as I bet it is now,” he cocked an eyebrow in Matt’s direction. “Which is to say, not very.” 

     Matt grinned, “I think you need to get some new material, old man.” 

     Bruce just glowered at both of them and grunted again. The brothers could tell that he wasn’t really angry though – he was just acting grumbly to keep to form. “What did I do to deserve having to deal with you two-” He muttered under his breath. 

     Matt broke in before the older two could get on a roll insulting each other. “How did you find us?” 

     “Our friend ‘Mr.Greenjeans’ left a little useful something behind. When he panicked and yanked his foot free from the magnet’s netting, he sheared off some fragments of the bottom of his foot. Gave me an intact surface to swab and run a trace analysis on.” 

      Matt broke in excitedly. He knew how Terry had done it. “You matched up the results from the trace analysis to areas in the city to find us. Cool!” 

      “Good thinking.” Bruce complimented Terry with a barely noticeable smirk. 

      Terry caught it however and grouched, "Jeez, I’ve only been watching you do this crap for the past nine years, Bruce. I sincerely hope that some of it would have sunk in by now. Nobody is _that_ thick.” 

     “I was beginning to wonder…” 

     Terry threw up his hands. “Argh!” he expressed his exasperation, but quietly. Matt snickered. Terry knew that Bruce wasn’t about to let him get the last word, so why did his brother even try? Trying not to laugh made his ribs twinge in pain though, making Matt aware they needed to get back to the situation at hand. 

      “For crying out loud, could you two keep your pitiful attempts at witty banter for the cave or the office?” Pain made his usually more lighthearted sarcasm sharper than usual and Matt instantly felt bad. It wasn’t Terry and Bruce’s fault he was hurt or that they were in this mess and he really shouldn’t take it out on them. Not even verbally, but now that he had their undivided attention he continued, “Can we focus here people? Remember the really strong freaky green guy made out of glassy stuff? Y’know, the one trying to hold me, and Bruce hostage, who is just on the other side of that door? What are we doing about him? Anything?” 

     “If you’re not careful, you just might cut yourself with that tongue one of these days Matt.” Terry had pitched his voice down into his ‘Batman’ register. Trying to sound like he was ticked off, but Matt could still hear the threads of amusement and worry underneath the grim tones. Matt made a rude gesture in his brother’s direction. Terry snorted, reassured that for the most part Matt was doing okay. Shaking his head Terry said with a faint grin, “Nothing fazes you anymore, does it Matt?” 

     Matt cocked his head at his brother and smirked, “Do you have a point?” Unthinkingly, he shifted his weight and promptly hissed with pain as things inside him that weren’t supposed to move, did. He brought a hand up to support the damaged area as he said, “C’mon bro, my ribs are killing me. Is there a plan or something or what? Fill us in already.” 

     “Yes, there’s a plan, and if you can keep your mouth from flapping for five minutes or so, I’ll tell you what it is.” Matt blew a quiet raspberry in his brother’s direction but leaned in close as Terry began to outline what he and Stalker had roughly worked out. 

            ~*~ 

      “You!”  

     The outraged yell from the main part of the building made Terry curse as he finished tying off the bindings on Matt’s ribs. A quick conference between the Batmen, new and old, had them both agreeing that it was too risky to move Matt without the rudimentary first aid. A notion that Matt heartily endorsed, both on a personal and practical level – one of his broken ribs slipping and puncturing a lung due to any injudicious moves he might make during their egress would more than suck as well as hinder their escape chances. Though it seemed that the short delay had been just long enough for Stalker to get noticed by their emerald captor. Hopefully, not before the geographically-displaced hunter had managed to lay out and camouflage the magnetic netting where planned. 

     Clearly heard by the trio on the upper level, the oddly resonating voice carried on harshly, “How did you find this place? What are you doing here? Wayne is only getting his due, why are you bothering with a rescue attempt? It’s not like he would help you or anyone else if they asked him for …” He continued to rant wildly in the same vein, much as he had while destroying the properties of Wayne Enterprises. 

     Terry cursed under his breath, Stalker getting noticed really pushed the timetable forward. At least Terry had already broken the lock on the abandoned office’s door and handed off the magnet’s cordless remote to Bruce, according to the plan that he had worked out with Stalker. All that was left was for the two former captives and for Batman himself to get into position. 

     Flying back out the window and back down to the opposite end of the ruined mill from where he knew Stalker had positioned himself. While manuvering, Batman could hear their quarry still ranting, and after hearing a few more specific vocalized grudges against Bruce Wayne - the man, clued in to who it was they had been fighting all this time. Peek! Ian Peek of all people come back to haunt them. 

     The slimy piece of garbage had caused them trouble enough the last time they had dealt with him – nothing earth shattering like some of the crooks they had to deal with true, but he’d been dangerous in his own fashion with his threatened exposure of their identities. His petulant demands that Bruce _*had*_ to help him because Taka had worked for _Bruce’s_ company and he had the resources – well demands of any sort were not the way to get anything from the old man. Especially when the reason you were suffering was from the side effects of your own misdeeds, that Bruce chalked up to just desserts. Terry totally agreed with his mentor on the outlook, karma was a bitch. 

     Granted he was a rather changed Peek, the man’s radically new appearance was indicative of that fact. His methods and level of danger really hadn’t changed all that much, he was still pretty much a petulant nusinace wanting what he thought of as justice for imagined wrongs against himself. It meant that he would probably be fairly easily baited into the trap they had laid for him. At least they hoped so, none of them really wanted to tangle up close and personal with the 650lb or so walking and talking hunk of fayalite. It was a given if that happened then they would hurt, bad, as Matt’s ribs attested. 

     Now all they had to do was successfully play on the terror that he had shown on at Wayne Enterprises head office of being trapped and then trap him for real. Terry had guessed fear of the dark was another element of  the same phobia, so he had made sure to bring along a blackout hood. The hood was actually the lynchpin of the plan, it was what they needed to be able to steer the living gemstone into the magnetic net which in turn would hold him. 

     Stalker played his part to perfection when he saw that Batman was in position. He had been lurking near where he had deployed the net under a hole in the roof. His positioning meant Peek wasn’t able to see in the shadows beyond clearly, so when Stalker bolted from the near side of the shadows to the far side Peek naturally followed to keep the large hunter in sight. This allowed Batman in camoflague mode to glide overhead and drop the blackout hood over green glasslike head neat as could be. A quick shot of the bolos secured the hood in place as Stlaker used the base of his telescoping spear to trip the now panicing Peek when he stumbled back into the center of the net. 

     After that things became rather anticlimactic, Wayne shot the power on the remote to full effectively pinning Peek in place. Then the Batmobile lowered it’ grapples through the whole in the roof, gathered up the loose edges of the netting and after carefully lifting clear of the building, remotely rocketed off with it’s wailing cargo. End destination, police. Somehow Terry was sure Barbara wasn’t going to be pleased with him. Ah well, couldn’t be helped – he did make sure to quietly key in an info drop of everything they had on Peek to her personal computer. He hoped that she got it before she got Peek. 

     Matt and Bruce had found their way down to the ground level, both looking a bit worse for wear. Matt still held a hand against his injured ribs. Stalker was just standing beside him. All four were glad that it was over. Suddenly Terry said, “Did you guys realize that was Ian Peek from that old show Sneak Peek?” 

     Bruce just cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘Oh yeah, I guess he would have clued in on the rants with how much more of them he had to listen to while I was searching for them.’ Terry thought, wondering why he thought he might have gotten one up on his mentor. 

      Matt said, “Hunh, I remember that show. I always wondered why the guy pulled the Batman expose and then just disappeared. I guess it had something to do with how he got his stories right? Whatever it was really came back and bit him on the butt, eh?” Terry and Bruce both chuckled. 

     “We’ll tell you all about it next ‘lesson’ night, okay Matt?” Terry replied. 

     Stalker summed it up the most succinctly though, “Reporters, bah, they are the parasites infesting the body of humanity.” 

            ~*~ 

      Matt walked up the familiar path to Beth’s door and knocked. While he waited for someone to answer, he nervously shifted the bouquet of Beth’s favorite flowers that he held from one hand to the other and back again. ‘Please be home Beth, I don’t like it when we aren’t talking.’ Matt now understood a lot better why Terry had been so insistent that he not neglect Beth because of working for him and Bruce or his other training. There were certain people in your life that did things for you without even trying. Beth did that for him and it wasn’t something that he wanted to lose. 

      He was broken out of his reverie abruptly when the door swung open suddenly. It was Beth and she didn’t look happy to see him. Her words confirmed his impression, “Oh… it’s you.” Matt just stood mute on the step, hurting. She ungraciously prompted him, “Well, what do you want?”

      Okay, maybe this was going to be a bit harder than he thought. She was really ticked at him. “Umm, can I come in?” 

      “I suppose.” She stepped back, still holding the door open and motioned for him to come into the hallway. As soon as he was clear she let the door go and it slammed behind him. 

     After the loud way the door had shut, Matt found the awkward silence in the hall deafening. “Umm…” he searched for something to say, anything, to break the stillness. His hands nervously constricted around the flowers that he still held, reminding him of them. 

     “Here,” he thrust the slightly bedraggled bouquet at Beth, “these are for you.” 

     Reflexively, she took them. Which was a good thing because he had already let go and retreated again. Sneaking a peek in her direction, he saw clearly when she noticed that they were wild tiger lilies, her favorites. Her face softened from the harsh mask she had been wearing since he first arrived to something more like her usual expression. She knew how hard it was to get her favorite flower. 

     Wildflowers that used to grow with impunity throughout the US were rare nowadays due to all the development. You had to know the Latin name for the things to be able to get them from a florist or nursery. ‘Thank God for memory training or I never would have been able to remember the name of those damn flowers.’ It was good to know that his training might help him save his relationship, even if it had been what almost ruined it in the first place. Deciding that the timing wasn’t about to get any better he launched into his pre-prepared speech. 

     “Beth, I know you’re pissed with me and I can’t blame you. I acted like an ass-” 

     “Yes you did.” Beth interjected feelingly. 

     “If I may continue…” Matt paused for any more comments that Beth might feel like making, when she shook her head he carried on, “as I was saying, I acted like an ass, but I can explain.” 

      “So… explain.” Beth seemed ready to listen to Matt’s relief. Playing the part he had cast himself in, Matt looked down at the floor and scuffed one toe over the other. 

      “Well y’see, the reason I blew up at you like that was because I was embarrassed. The night that you saw Batman dropping me off, it was because he had just finished rescuing me.” Matt peered through his lashes to see exactly how Beth took that little revelation. She didn’t disappoint him. Her mouth fell open and her eyes went wide. Nearly dropping the flowers she rushed to his side asking, 

     “Rescuing? What happened? Are you okay?” 

     “Yeah, I’m fine for the most part. I got a couple of sore spots, but I’ll survive.” Matt answered her last question first as he chuckled at her rapid fire questioning. 

     “To put it simply, I got mugged. A bunch of T’s cornered me when I was on my way home from work and, I guess I should say ‘attempted’ to mug me, to be completely accurate. Problem was, is when I didn’t have enough creds to satisfy their greed, they decided that since I wasn’t going to fund their entertainment, I was going to be it.” Beth gasped gratifyingly. “Needless to say, ten to one odds – they suck. They were creaming me until Batman jumped in.” 

      Beth looked tortured. Matt knew she was feeling torn. She couldn’t decide whether to be concerned for Matt, or excited to hear about her hero, Batman, in action. He solved her dilemma by plowing ahead with his ‘story’. 

      “Then the odds slanted dramatically in the other direction. They didn’t stand a chance, Beth, even with them having ten to his one. He took them all out in minutes. It was so schway – except for the pretty major fact that I was hurting so bad, and the totally humiliating reason I was in pain – it would have been a dream come true.” Matt worked hard to get the pathos in the last line right – too much or too little meant Beth might guess he wasn’t telling her the truth. It seemed that he had gauged it just right though because Beth rewarded him with a commiserating hug. Which caused him promptly to wince as she compressed his still tender ribs. 

     “Oww! Watch the ribs Beth, they’re not totally healed yet.” 

     In one move Beth stepped back from him and yanked up his t-shirt revealing the supportive tape swathing his chest. Matt hissed and Beth swore, “Damn Matt, I thought you said that you were okay?” She poked a finger into the tape. “This is more than a sore spot, buddy. What else are you hiding?” 

     “Beth, I’m fine. Honest. The biggest hit was to my macho male ego, but if it will make you feel better I will give you a run-down of all my injuries.” Matt paused and then said archly, “Heck I’ll even make it a guided sightseeing tour of every single one if you want.” 

     Beth blushed as his gibe registered. It brought her attention to the fact that she was still holding the hem of his t-shirt up, exposing his bandaged chest. She didn’t however drop it immediately like he expected. Instead she lowered it slowly, fascinated. Trailing her fingers over muscles normally covered to public view. Matt’s breath stuttered in his chest, finding it very hard to concentrate all of a sudden. ‘Oooh boy, this is…’ 

     He had better finish his apology and explanation while he still could, “I was doing my best trying to act normal, but I was hurt, embarrassed, and generally feeling pretty low. I’d just gotten my but handed to me on a platter, had to be saved like some kind of wimp by our hero, and then that same hero saw me home and waited outside until I got in the door like a little kid who can’t be trusted to get home on his own.” 

     Sheepish, Beth said, “And then the next day you have me acting all freaky at school on you.” Matt nodded and Beth continued guiltily, “God, you must have been getting really weirded out by all the looks I was sending you all day long and then when you asked me if there was something bothering me, I so totally unloaded on you.” 

     “Yep, can you forgive me?” Matt asked with his best big brown puppy dog eyes. 

     Beth laughed in surprise. Grinning she said, “I guess so, but only if you forgive me too. You had no right to yell at me like you did, but I had no right jumping to conclusions and getting on your case like I did.” 

     “When you put it that way, I’d have to be an idiot to argue.” He winked and proposed one better, “Or how about we just call it even. We disregard each other’s mistakes, as one nullifies the other, and just keep on like we were never interrupted?” 

     “Sounds fair to me.” Beth chuckled throatily, “Did I happen to let drop that my parents are gone for the weekend?” Beth smiled warmly up into Matt’s eyes. “Now, about that guided sightseeing tour you mentioned…” Fingers that had never left his skin from her earlier explorations began to journey again.

 

The End.

 

 


End file.
